Up front admission: this is a newbie topic, cause I think I'm the youngest one here in terms of Zen experience. I've been sitting for about a week now, so beat that! I've had a serious interest in Buddhism for years, but never pursued it because of feelings of obligation toward the Other White Religion... (uh, that was a pork/fish joke, not a race joke :wink: ) and now that I have access to a community of like-minded folken, I figured I had no excuse to hold back.

So, I've spent the last few days raking through posts here and trying to get to know everyone by their teeny pictures, and I still have a question which seems important to me: what is Shikantaza? I got the sitting part, I even face the closet door in my bedroom, but what specifically am I supposed to be doing? The only form of meditation I've researched is Vipassana (sp?) and I've gotten the impression that ain't it.

And can I have my coffee first? :shock:

I guess I just need someone to throw a link at me with pop-up pages and the little buttons down the side that make noises for the story... yeah, that would do me just fine...